A new bus route 137 will be trialled as a pre-paid-only service to provide a faster trip between Sunnybank Hills
A new bus route 137 will be trialled as a pre-paid-only service to provide a faster trip between Sunnybank Hills and the City, Queensland Minister for Transport, Trade, Employment and Industrial Relations John Mickel says.
The 137, being introduced from February 18 as part of $4.6 million worth of new services for Brisbane, will operate in the busy Mains Road corridor.
“We had fantastic success with our recent pre-paid platform trial at the Cultural Centre Busway Station,” Mickel says.
“Efficiency increased dramatically, which in turn led to a reduction in the amount of time each bus waited at the platform.
“Now we are moving to trial the pre-paid-only concept onboard bus services.
“We are very hopeful the same sort of results we saw during the Cultural Centre trial will be seen again in the 137 pre-paid-only trial.
“The average time taken when paying a fare onboard a bus is 11 seconds, while validating a ticket takes just th ree seconds.
“On a full articulated bus carrying 87 passengers, this potentially saves almost 12 minutes on each trip,” he claims.
“By making the new 137 route a pre-paid, all-the-way service, up to 1310 hours of travel time can be saved in a year.”
Passengers using the 137 service must have a valid TransLink ticket before boarding the bus — they will not be available from the bus driver.
Passengers without pre-purchased tickets may continue to buy tickets onboard all other bus routes in the Mains Road corridor.
Route 137 will operate every 10 minutes on weekdays between 6.20am and 8.30am and between 4.04pm and 6.04pm.
The service will use ”banana” buses with a capacity for 87 passengers and will run non-stop between the QEII park ‘n’ ride and Brisbane CBD via the Southeast Busway and Captain Cook Bridge.
The 137, which will provide capacity to carry an additional 2349 passengers a day, is expected to take pressu re off other popular services in the Mains Road corridor, such as the 129 ,130 and 131 routes.
Customers can pre-purchase tickets from local ticket agents or any QR Citytrain station.
For a full list of ticket agents, please refer to the TransLink website, www.translink.com.au.